Leon Turnbull Photography

Rattle and Hum … to put it lightly, that is the extent of what my brain was doing the entire drive up to Faucherie Lake the other evening. Not to mention my poor vehicle. The road up to Bowman Lake and Faucherie Lake has got to be the roughest, craziest, wickedest, bumpiest road in the greater Sacramento area bar none. It takes a full hour or more to drive the 12 miles on the dirt road. That is 12 miles per hour. And the last 7 miles or so from the west end of Bowman Lake up to Faucherie Lake is the worst. I was doing less than 5 miles per hour much of the time. The thing that totally boggled my mind, however, is that I saw two low clearance cars driving this road. You would have to be absolutely nuts of the highest order to drive this road in your car. I was going bonkers in my high clearance SUV.

Anyway … needless to say, I don’t like driving up to Bowman Lake or Faucherie Lake very often. This was actually my second trip up there this year (which is one more than any sane person would do in a year). The first time I just drove to Bowman Lake. This time I drove all the way to Faucherie Lake. And as I said, the last part is much rougher.

I was looking for new waterfalls of course. I have been to the waterfall below Faucherie Lake before. But there are some more falls above Faucherie Lake, along Canyon Creek coming down from French Lake. I checked dreamflows.com and it indicated the flow on Canyon Creek below French Lake was a paltry 6 cubic feet per second (cfs). That did not bode well for me. In fact, it seems that it is extremely rare that they let out more water from the dam at French Lake. Yet, I had heard that the waterfalls above Faucherie Lake were quite good ones in the summer. So I wanted to go check out this 6 cfs flow and see what these falls were really like.

I arrived at the trailhead later than I anticipated (because the drive took a lot longer than anticipated). I had hoped to hike all the way up to French Lake, but I didn’t think I would have time now. Anyway, the first order of business is to cross the dam at Faucherie Lake. Stupidly, I forgot my water shoes at home. Thus, I had to wade across in my bare feet. As I was crossing, I noticed a lot of little fish in the stream below the dam. Then I noticed a snake in the water ahead of me! It was not a rattle snake. It was just swimming in the water, probably trying to catch the little fishies. Well I don’t like snakes, rattlers or not, and this one was in my direct path. So I went wide around it on the rocks. That is when I noticed a second snake, also not a rattler. Now I was pretty wary, cuz there certainly could be rattlers around here. When I got to the other side of the creek, I noticed that I had slashed my foot open on the sharp rocks. Serves me right for forgetting my water shoes. But I blame it all on the snakes. It was a pretty deep cut, but it was not bleeding too badly and it did not hurt. So I put my socks and hiking boots back on and continued on the hike (the foot did not start hurting me until after I got back home, and then I was in quite some pain).

As I approached the inlet to Faucherie Lake on Canyon Creek, I could hear the creek rushing quite strongly. It sure seemed a lot more than 6 cfs. How could this be, I wondered? I did not know, but I was definitely pleased about it. There is a trail leading up the west side of Canyon Creek, and it was fairly easy to follow, though a bit faint in places. I reached the waterfalls in short order. I found a series of four separate drops all in a row. None of them are individually very high or spectacular (the highest is 20 ft.), but taken together, it is definitely a beautiful location and an excellent series of waterfalls. It was a bit cliffy (as per usual with my hikes), and difficult to get down to the creek side to get a closer look and photograph, but I carefully made my way down to one section where I could get a nicer view.

I then continued up the trail to Weir Lake to its outlet. I suspect that a lot of the flow in Canyon Creek was coming from Weir Lake where there is no dam, but I did not go far enough to see what the flow into Weir Lake was like. I was out of time and could not continue up to French Lake, so back down the trail I went. I stopped at the waterfall below Faucherie Lake as well, and got there just as the sun was setting and the mosquitoes were coming out. But I didn’t see any of the little buggers until I got there, so I did have quite a pleasant evening.

Well I really hadn’t been out hiking in a long while and I was anxious to get out and see something. It’s been awfully hot, it is mosquito season, and the waterfalls are well past their peak by now.

I knew 790 ft. high Horsetail Falls would be flowing well, however. And since it was 100+ degrees in Folsom, I figured it was time to escape the heat and head into the mountains for a breath of cooler air. I watched the temperature gage in my car decline from 100 as I drove up the hill. When I arrived at the trailhead, it was at 83. Well that is not too bad. Any higher and it would have been a bit too warm for hiking, so I was pleased, and it would get cooler as the evening went on.

There were lots of people and cars parked at the trailhead on this Sunday evening. It is a very popular trail, but when I have been here before, the people are usually all exiting by sunset time. This was what I expected again. I would see a lot of people on the trail while I was hiking up to the falls, but once I got there I would be all alone. That was almost but not quite the way it worked out. I did see a lot of people exiting as I hiked up to the falls. When I arrived at the waterfall, there was no one else in the vicinity where I was photographing the falls, so I did have it to myself mostly. But there were still quite a lot of people descending from the top of the falls surprisingly, so I was not the only one in the area, and I was not the last one to leave the area either (when I went back down). The best thing though was that there were ZERO mosquitoes! I’ve never really encountered a lot of mosquitoes here before, but when I was here at the same time a couple years ago, there were a lot more. But zero is very good! I wonder if mosquito season is about over now. Perhaps it is time to head out more into the high country.

Anyway, Horsetail Falls was flowing quite well, but not quite what I was expecting. Considering the large snow pack we had this year, I was expecting this waterfall to be amazing, but it was clearly past its peak. It had about the same flow as it did when I visited here in July two years ago (and that was a drought year). Nonetheless, it is still an awesome waterfall. I think though that I arrived a bit too late in the evening for best light. The waterfall was all in shadow and the nice warm light on the rocks was all gone. I probably should have been there an hour earlier in the day.

As I was photographing the falls, I was approached by a family coming down from the top. The very friendly guy asked me if I could photograph them by the waterfall, and he would pay me. I said sure, and that he didn’t have to pay me. But he insisted on giving me $10. Well that was enough to pay for my parking and a hamburger later. Sweet. Anyway, I photographed them by the falls. We talked for awhile and then they went on back down while I took a couple more shots of the falls before I headed back down myself. It was a lovely evening.

Please sign up for one of the new Waterfall Photography workshops I am offering this Fall. Sign up by July 31, and receive a free 20-30 print of your choice.

On Father’s Day, I drove up to Bowman Lake in the evening. The Tahoe Natl. Forest website said the road was still closed due to snow. But they are always behind and never keep their site up to date. I thought I would try it anyway. And I was right in trying it. The road was free of snow and open all the way up to Bowman Lake. There were quite a few other people out making the drive up there as well. But no one was going where I was planning to go. Because no one even knows about it.

The outlet from Bowman Lake is Canyon Creek. It flows down down down into the South Yuba River. And it makes a few waterfalls along the way. Not too many people know about these waterfalls below Bowman Lake. But this one here, which I am calling Upper Canyon Creek Falls, is not too hard to get to. If you stop at Windy Point on the road up to Bowman Lake, you can get a grand vista of this canyon, and see the creek rushing hard down from Bowman Lake, zigging and zagging, and winding its way down the canyon. If you look straight across from this point, you will see the creek disappear into the trees, then turn back away from you. This is where the waterfall is. If the trees were not there, you could likely see the falls. But you can’t get down there from Windy Point. There is a huge cliff in the way. You need to hike down from the other side, starting nearer to Bowman Lake.

The hike begins on a logging road. It was hot and muggy. The mosquitoes were out in force. I had to put on bug juice for the first time this year. I hate that stuff! But I got some from REI that was deet free, and it seemed to work very well once I put it on. The bugs were staying away from me. It is a pretty easy hike down the logging road until you get near the waterfall. I could hear and see the falls from the road, but how to get down to it? I found an open area from the road and started going cross country. As I got closer to the creek, I could get a pretty good look at the falls. It was a nice one. But once down at the creek, I was still far away from it. I had to work my way up the creek to the falls. Things got a bit more difficult and brushy, but I managed to do it. Now I was close to the falls, but there was a big cliff in the way, as the creek drops into a narrow gorge, and you can not see the waterfall. The only way to see it would be from the middle of the creek. The creek was rushing much too fast to consider wading or crossing. But fortunately, there were some big rocks that protruded right out into the middle of the creek. I could hop out on these rocks into the middle to see the waterfall, and take my photos. If the creek was flowing any harder, these rocks would have been submerged and this would not have been possible. As it was, things were a bit dicey. I was getting splashed by the water, and every once in a while, more of the creek would splash over onto the rocks, and all the while the creek was raging past me. The really bad thing though is that I was downstream from the dam at Bowman Lake, and if they decided to let out more water from the dam, I would have been in serious trouble. But I knew that the outflow from the dam is very consistent and this scenario was highly unlikely. Anyway, it is definitely a very cool spot. And the waterfall is a very cool one. I measured it to be 44 ft. high. I was extremely happy to have found this on Father’s Day. A great day indeed.

On one evening at Disneyland we went to see the new World of Color show. It was an incredibly spectacular display of water, lights, and fire. It was also a madhouse.

This show was not organized very well in terms of traffic control. The best place (and really the only good place) to view it is from the front row. But they don’t open “the gates” until a couple hours before the event. Then it is a mad rush of people down to the viewing area. We had kids so we couldn’t just run down there like everyone else. Thus we couldn’t get a front row spot, so we settled on the second viewing area back from the front. The good thing about this spot is that we wouldn’t get wet by the water works from the show, and this allowed me to take pictures. But the bad thing is that we didn’t have a clear view of the show, and there were many people in front of us (and thus, in my pictures). If I were to go back for this show, I would definitely want to experience it from the front row. However, I don’t think it would be possible to take pictures from the front because you get completely drenched from there by the water.

The World of Color show is a very challenging thing to photograph. These shots were all hand held, in low light, with the light changing constantly from dark to bright to very bright. It was impossible to focus, or get any kind of consistent exposure. Nonetheless, I did have a few shots that turned out not too bad. These were my favorites.

On another note, please sign up for one of the new Waterfall Photography workshops I am offering this Fall. Sign up by July 31, and receive a free 20×30 print of your choice.

We just returned from a nice family vacation to Disneyland. It was an adventurous trip.

It started out the first day with a trip to the ER. For my daughter and myself at the same time. Nekoda just had a bad fever but my wife was worried about ear infection. She did not have that but did have a virus that needed antiobiotics to get rid of. As for me, well let’s just say it was nothing serious and I was able to walk around Disneyland for 4 days without too much pain. But it does mean that my backpacking trip to Yosemite next weekend will be canceled, and I will need to return to the doctor to get the problem taken care of. Bummer.

As for Disneyland, the kids (my wife included) had way too much fun. The weather was very nice (not too hot), and the crowds were quite manageable (surprisingly). We rode Pirates of the Caribbean about 7 times (well, my wife rode it 7 times). That is now Jadon and Nekoda’s favorite ride as well. We saw the fireworks show and the new World of Color shows (both very impressive). The best show I thought was the Abraham Lincoln show, which was incredibly inspiring (yet sad that so few people go to see that). My daughter was ecstatic because she got to meet a lot of the princesses. We stood in long lineups for her to do that, but seeing her face light up when she met them was incredibly priceless. I’m not sure who her favorite was (she loved ALL of them). Jadon even got to dance with Ariel in a show and that was too cool (that’s my boy!).

I took a lot of family pictures of course. I also tried to get some shots of some of the characters around Disneyland, and I am posting here a few of my favorites.